The Senate majority leader is a taciturn traditionalist steeped in the ways of Washington, after more than three decades in Congress. Trump, a real estate magnate and reality TV celebrity who had never held public office until he assumed the presidency in January, airs his views regularly on Twitter and has vowed to drain what he calls the "swamp" of the United States capital.

One area of the Republican effort so far that insurers do embrace is loosening restrictions to allow insurers to charge older people higher premiums than they currently can now relative to younger people. Didn't he know, like the rest of us, that when two-thirds of the House voted to ban vouchers in the state budget, they would reject vouchers in any form?

Still unclear is how much the House will raise teacher pay and cut taxes - those will be released early next week. It's been eagerly awaited but shows little change on insurance coverage compared with the earlier version of the health bill, which collapsed. This is a cold-hearted budget cut masquerading as health reform. I also want to thank the members of the Texas House for strongly supporting House Bill 21. The tax is applied to wages over $200,000 for an individual and over $250,000 for a married couple.

After weeks of meetings, Senate Republicans attempting to hash out a way forward on a bill to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act are no closer to agreeing how the country's health care system should operate.

Huberty disagreed and wanted to send the bill back to a conference committee Wednesday, but his legislative counterpart Taylor told reporters he did not intend to assign more committee members to continue the already long-winded H.B. Will we ever see the ideal budget? The last-minute push was made after President Trump signaled that his administration would allow contentious culture fights to play out at the local level. Veteran Republicans including McCain know that what they need to do is put together a draft piece of legislation where nearly all of it is agreed upon, then start getting into the final wheeling and dealing on the last critical details.

For a core group of Senate Republicans, those facts may be all they need to bury the House version of a health-care overhaul once and for all. The Kentucky Republican calls that statute "unsustainable". Huberty had tried to get the Senate to include one of his own bills, creating a $20 million grant program for schools helping students with autism, instead of the voucher-like program for kids with special needs.

A Senate provision that would tighten eligibility requirements to obtain food stamps - potentially affecting 133,000 people, including 51,000 children and access to free or reduced school lunches - was left out of the House budget. Taylor authored Senate Bill 3, a comprehensive ESA and tax credit scholarship package.

"The real hard issue that we'll have to deal with next week will have to be the tax issue as to how much do we need to both stabilize and balance the budget and fund a school finance bill", said Senate Majority Leader Anthony Hensley, D-Topeka.

The chamber has presented and voted on similar plans over the last several months, and, even with a clear message from the House that Delegates won't support the measure, the upper chamber will likely vote on an almost identical bill again Wednesday.

The amended bill, approved 18-13 by the chamber's Republican majority, would also end state income taxes on military pensions and Social Security benefits, similar to the tax bill recently passed by the House. He blamed the state government's revenue shortfall on a 2012 tax reform bill signed by Brownback that denied the state hundreds of millions of dollars needed to properly meet core obligations, such as public education.

Rouhani dismisses Trump warning over Iran 'threat'
The fact is Iran has conducted its foreign policy in the isolationist groove since the rise to power of Imam Khomeini in 1979. Rouhani was responding to a question on Monday from The Associated Press at a news conference in Tehran.

Usmanov makes $1.2billion bid to buy Arsenal
This breaking news story is being updated as more information emerges - please refresh the page for the most recent version. The Gunners, who finished fifth in the Premier League this season, face Chelsea in the FA Cup final on Saturday.

You can now search Instagram stories by location and hashtag
Right now, Snapchat users can only post to their own Stories with no way of sorting them, and clips are arranged chronologically. Now, with more than 200 million people using Stories every single day , Instagram is making its Stories bigger than ever.

Celine Dion wore dress packed with tissues
During the performance, Titanic's most emotional scenes played in the background. "I did", Law recalled of finding the dress. Aubrey Drake Graham as she was officially his.

Spurs title hopes on the rocks after crushing loss to Irons
West Ham kept Tottenham at arm's length once it went ahead and the final whistle sparked scenes of jubilation around the ground. But for the second year in a row the team's bid for a first title since 1961 has faltered in the closing weeks of the season.

Rolf Harris home after being released from prison
He had been appearing in that court via videolink, but will attend the rest of the trial in person of next week. The former TV star walked out of Stafford Prison today having been granted bail on Friday morning.